Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni suggested Pau Gasol won't return in the regular season after nursing torn plantar fascia in his right foot for the past three weeks.

"By the time he gets back, we'll be in or out," D'Antoni said. "His impact will be in the playoffs if we get there."

The Lakers (28-29) have 25 games remaining before the regular season ends April 17 against the Houston Rockets. After their 103-99 victory Sunday over the Dallas Mavericks, the Lakers remain 2 games behind the Houston Rockets (31-27) for the eighth playoff spot.

"I don't think anyone on this team is counting the days for Pau to come back because we don't have time," Lakers guard Steve Nash said. "Although we'd welcome him back this instance, we have to move on and try to win games without him."

if thats true then wow theres a good chance we probably saw the last of Pau in a Laker jersey

There's no update on Pau's status. MDA is saying that Pau won't be back in the RS long enough to have an impact, but by the time the playoffs roll around he'll be ready. Given he was supposed to be out for 6 weeks we already knew that.

And Nash is saying we can't wait around for him to come back because they need to win now.

I think the $109 mil in salary fits though. Duhon's salary is guaranteed for $1.5 mil, and even if he's waived, that part will be taxed. That means it's comparable to keep Duhon at $3.75 mil, or cut him and replace him with a player making $2.25 mil. But I filled half the roster with one MLE player and a bunch of vet mins, and added Dwight's deal. If you think $109 is wrong, feel free to show your own payroll.

Amnestying Gasol saves the Lakers about $75 mil ... and Gasol is not worth $75 mil next season.

this is just some random Minn fan rant about type of money we could save if we amenstied Pau.....I dont trust these #'s at all, can any nba tax guy really confirm these #'s? If this if its really $75mill saved by amenstying Pau, I think mgmt. would really consider it but this #'s sound way to high IMO.

Well first of all it's well known that our team next season would be taxed for 85 million if we didn't add or remove anybody. He added more people to our roster without subtracting any which is why his is higher.

I didn't think the tax was increased every 5 million, but I could be wrong.

Regardless, amnestying Pau would be ridiculously idiotic. He's not only a 18/10 guy, but he's expiring which is huge. He's worth a ton this summer. Amnestying World Peace is far more likely. Also trading Duhon and his friendly contract is far more likely too.

Starting the 2013/14 season, the new incremental tax rates will start applying, but for seasons 2011/12 and 2012/13, its still taxed as $1-for-$1. Also, the incremental tax rates for repeat tax payers will not apply till the 2014/15 season. The Lakers have payed the luxury tax for the 2011/12 season and will certainly pay for the 2012/13 season as well. From the looks of it, they will also be tax payers for the 2013/14 season and if they breach the tax apron for the 2014/15 season, they will be repeat offenders for the first 4 years of the new CBA contract and will have to pay the steeper more penalizing tax rates. By default, for the 2015/16 season, they will have to pay the steeper tax rates once again since they will be offenders 4 out of the last 5 years. So seeing how LA will be tax payers for the first 3 years of the new CBA, the summer of 2014 makes it that much more important for LA to avoid breaching the cap apron...and its entirely doable since Nash will be the only one with a contract for that season.

The tax apron is at about $70M this year and since the Lakers are at $100M (which is their tax figure, but with other cap holds and rolling payments, they're actually at $113M), they'll pay about $30M in taxes. Obviously if Pau were traded at the deadline, the Lakers would be saving about $19M in taxes and $38M total (if you take into account their cap hit along with the tax).

Lets say Dwight stays and signs the max 5 year deal totaling roughly $117M, in his first season under his new max deal (2013/14) he will make about $20.3M. If the rest of the core returns, that puts us at $100M already (with Kobe, Dwight, Pau and Nash making $80M of it). This accounts for Jamison, Clark, Morris, Ebanks and Sacre all expiring. We can bring back Jamison for the vet min again, but Clark is going to be looking for a raise (roughly 190% of his previous contract = $3.5M in 2013/14). So lets assume we round out the roster with a newly re-upped Jamison and Clark and possibly some randoms, we're looking at our cap being about $105M (which is a generous total...in actuality it could be more).

No way do the Lakers want to pay that in taxes. Ideally, they want to just deal Pau and get back as little salary as possible. So for instance, lets say they amnesty Pau next season, that's roughly $20M shaven off the team cap leading to about $85M. That would put them roughly $15M over the apron and that would lead to $28.75M in taxes.

We have about $40M in expirings next year (Pau, Metta, Blake, Duhon, Meeks, Hill)...don't be surprised if we deal away most of that at .50 on the dollar. In fact, Cuban may have gotten part of it right with the amnesty...but it won't be Kobe...it might be THAT Spaniard.

*If we go for a second tier SF (Deng, Granger, etc.), there is enough value to get a vet. min backup SF that can contribute. I like the thought of two solid SF one that can play D and hit the 3 ball, the other a scorer 6th man.

**Maybe swing a 3 way deal with the Suns to get Beasley/Dudley and move Pau to a 3rd team, while getting the Suns what they want.

Rule of Thumb at ClubLakers - Never encourage people to check your post history.

khmrP wrote:^^^we wouldn't hit the repeater tax though right if after Pau/Kobe current contract is done and we manage to build a team thats more cap friendly after 2014?

Yep...Nash is the only contract that remains when the repeater rates first come into effect. A max Howard and Nash would put us at about 35M. Kobe has to take a paycut if he wants to stick around...and if the King is available, you need to make a move on him IMHO. So getting to 58M with a majority of it going to Howard, Bron and Nash is alright with me.

But this next season has us looking at a possible 100M+ tax hit. Something has to give...and I think its the value we'll be getting back. If we want to shop in the summer of 2014, we can't take back committed salaries...so our expirings would have to be traded for other expirings or young players on low-scale rookie contracts.

If we plan to just keep our bloated contracts in hope of conducting trades to bring in a free agent in 2014, then forgetaboutit....since we're over the apron, we're restricted from bringing in a S&T'd player. We can sign and trade our own free agents to teams that are under the apron, but we cannot bring in a S&T player ourselves.

Essentially, this season really really really hurts, since Kobe was balling and we wasted it.

Doc: Good trade scenarios...hopefully our FO can get just as creative....they're going to need to.

*If we go for a second tier SF (Deng, Granger, etc.), there is enough value to get a vet. min backup SF that can contribute. I like the thought of two solid SF one that can play D and hit the 3 ball, the other a scorer 6th man.

**Maybe swing a 3 way deal with the Suns to get Beasley/Dudley and move Pau to a 3rd team, while getting the Suns what they want.

Yeah this is pretty on point. A SF rotation of Deng or Granger/Dudley would be perfect for this team. I'm not so sure Jamison comes back cheap next season. I think he was willing to take the paycut for 1 year for a ring, would be tough selling him on that again.

*If we go for a second tier SF (Deng, Granger, etc.), there is enough value to get a vet. min backup SF that can contribute. I like the thought of two solid SF one that can play D and hit the 3 ball, the other a scorer 6th man.

**Maybe swing a 3 way deal with the Suns to get Beasley/Dudley and move Pau to a 3rd team, while getting the Suns what they want.

Yeah this is pretty on point. A SF rotation of Deng or Granger/Dudley would be perfect for this team. I'm not so sure Jamison comes back cheap next season. I think he was willing to take the paycut for 1 year for a ring, would be tough selling him on that again.

ya while he isn't worth the money he gets paid...he certainly is better than nothing.But I have to admit, it has given Jamison consistent minutes and he actually is productive. Since both play no defense at this point I'm perfectly happy with Jamison.

"It is not how big you are, it is how big you play""Basketball doesn't build character. It reveals it""Be strong in body, clean in mind, lofty in ideals"

Mark Medina ‏@MedinaLakersNBA Pau Gasol had ultrasound test Tuesday & now cleared to run on the elliptical. A Lakers spokesman said "healing process is coming along."

janis carr ‏@janiscarr

Pau Gasol saw the dr. Monday and had ultrasound on his foot. He has been cleared to use ellipitcal machine. Expected to be 3 more weeks

From a member of LG on Thrusday

Dr Klapper was just on 710 ESPN radio talking with Mark Willard about Pau's recovery. He said Pau should be back in 3-4 weeks with no restrictions when he returns.

Great news.. When Dwight sits, it's a layup drill no matter who we're playing. Pau isn't a great rim protector or anything but his height & length alone limits penetration more than our Clark/Jamison frontline.

Mark Medina of the LA Daily News wrote:For the first time since tearing the plantar fascia of his right foot four weeks ago, Lakers forward Pau Gasol received medical clearance Thursday to participate in running drills.

“Discomfort was minimal,” Gasol said on Twitcam. “Very encouraging.”

Gasol traveled with the Lakers’ on their two-game trip to Oklahoma City (Tuesday) and New Orleans (Wednesday) and spent that time working with strength and conditioning coach Tim DiFrancesco on exercises that test his gluteal and neuro muscles. Gasol has missed the past 13 games and is expected to stay sidelined for at least another two to four weeks.